After Transmigrating into a Book, I Became Partners with My Mortal Enemy - Chapter 14 

Ding Xiandi froze in her tracks. She thought she had misheard. “Relieving desire” and You Fuling those two concepts simply did not belong in the same sentence.

She stared at the other girl, words failing her, while You Fuling looked back boldly, challenging her. “You’re not agreeing?”

The chipped, silver-plated Tianji Command had been fixed by You Fuling’s magic. It made one wonder if this genius “Second Senior Sister” had a private treasury that was simply overflowing, especially since she had even conjured a decorative headpiece for the impoverished swordswoman.

Ding Xiandi was completely oblivious to the headpiece. She pretended to deliberate seriously before humming an affirmation after a few heartbeats. “Can I even say no?”

She didn’t actually consider that You Fuling might have designs on her. Instead, combining the rumors of You Fuling’s special constitution, she felt a flicker of worry. “I’m not exactly prime material for a ‘vessel,’ you know. Don’t let me be the one taking advantage of you when the time comes.”

Ding Xiandi didn’t show the anger or the sense of being insulted that You Fuling had expected. This made You Fuling recall certain old rumors. She couldn’t help but ask, “In the past, did you have someone…”

Her train of thought was easy to read. Ding Xiandi suddenly understood why Ji Ting acted like a mother hen protecting her chick. Anyone who mocked Mei Chi for being a glutton was the real idiot.

“Have I dated before?”

“No.”

You Fuling pressed, “Truly?”

Ding Xiandi hummed. “Why would I lie to you? Aren’t you and I in the same boat? We never had a choice in these matters.”

You had many more choices than I did, You Fuling thought.

Ding Xiandi’s Tianji Command wouldn’t stop chirping. She picked it up; it was a flood of messages from Mei Chi. The device woke up automatically and played a voice transmission:

“Second Senior Sister, are you done yet? I’m almost at the front of the line!”

“An alchemist just asked me for one of Eldest Senior Sister’s feathers. They asked if I’d sell it for a hundred spirit stones! Should I say yes? A hundred stones!”

“Second Senior Sister, aren’t you here yet? There are only twelve people left in front of me. Are you still being all lovey-dovey with that Heaven-Refining Sect woman?”

“My mom said the prettier a woman is, the harder she is to handle. You have no money, no cultivation, and you aren’t even pretty. Just stay grounded, okay?”

“I think A-Zu is pretty good too. She’s frail, but she’s an alchemist. If you two hooked up, we’d be…”

You Fuling interrupted, “Who is A-Zu?”

Ding Xiandi’s head was spinning from Mei Chi’s voice; the girl was far too noisy. She tucked the device away. “An alchemist from the Moon-Falling Sect.”

You Fuling glanced at her, her tone turning a degree colder. “You like her?”

“What exactly do you think of me?” Ding Xiandi asked, caught between laughter and tears. “Am I the type to fall for every person I see? Don’t believe those baseless rumors.”

You Fuling just nodded, looking as though she didn’t believe a word. “Your junior sister is waiting for you.”

By the time Ding Xiandi found Mei Chi, her head was still full of You Fuling’s sarcastic remark about “her junior sister.”

In the dining hall, practically anyone could beat Ding Xiandi in a fight. Her spiritual energy was so thin she couldn’t tell anyone’s cultivation level. Mei Chi told her to look at the Tianji Commands people wore; only then did Ding Xiandi realize the “electroplated silver” color was a symbol of being a complete amateur, it wasn’t just a phone case!

Mei Chi had run into Zu Jinxi while waiting, and the two were chatting. When Ding Xiandi approached, Zu Jinxi stepped aside. Mei Chi pulled her sister over. “I had A-Zu help us save a spot in line.”

Ding Xiandi thanked her. The alchemist, carrying a food box, nodded and left shortly after.

The dining hall was bustling. Mei Chi brought over the food trays and asked again about the crane feather. Ding Xiandi, remembering the massive bird, dismissed the idea. “Forget it. Why are you trying to pluck her feathers? We aren’t that poor yet.”

“Oh,” Mei Chi muttered. “If you had accepted Senior Sister Ji’s thirty thousand spirit notes, we could have had new robes every day.”

They sat in a corner. The disciples passing by had fluttering, elegant sleeves, unlike the patch-covered robes of Mei Chi and Ding Xiandi, which looked quite comical. Ding Xiandi had no appetite for the buns; she was only there to keep Mei Chi company.

She propped her chin on her hand, watching the girl eat voraciously. Thinking of You Fuling’s response, she said, “Don’t worry. Your Senior Sister has landed the wealthiest patron around.”

Mei Chi didn’t miss a beat. “You sold your body?”

Ding Xiandi choked on her breath, You Fuling’s line about “relieving desire” surfacing in her mind. She didn’t think You Fuling actually knew anything, so she nodded with a smile. “I did.”

Mei Chi stopped eating her bun. She looked at Ding Xiandi’s noticeably neater hair and pointed at the headpiece. “Did Senior Sister You give you that too?”

Ding Xiandi touched it. “Yeah.”

She was used to short hair in her original world; this long hair was beyond her comfort zone and a daily hassle. Unlike her classmates who could use cleansing spells at will, Ding Xiandi couldn’t use spiritual energy even after memorizing the basic incantations. Everything had to be done by hand. No wonder the sword masters got a headache just looking at her.

Mei Chi sighed like a little old lady. “But why?”

Ding Xiandi couldn’t help but ask, “Don’t you think I’ve changed a lot compared to before?”

The original work had spent little ink on this character, she was a tool used to highlight the female lead’s charm, though her eventual death had won her a small cult following of “pure love” fans. After transmigrating, Ding Xiandi had no desire to join the lead’s plotline. The Academy system was destined to be abolished once the protagonist entered.

The original owner, weak in cultivation, would eventually fall into the demonic path for love and gain supreme power. Ding Xiandi didn’t want that path. If she couldn’t find a solution, she would be a pathetic bit-player forever, unqualified for the “Hidden Heaven Bureau,” likely forced to find a trade just to scrape by.

That wasn’t the life she wanted. She wanted to go home.

Mei Chi took a serious look at the girl opposite her. “You have changed. You look less like a slob.”

What was I even expecting? Ding Xiandi thought. Still, she pressed on. “Don’t you think I’m like a different person entirely?”

The girl with the twin buns shook her head. “You never acted much like a person anyway.”

Ouch, Ding Xiandi thought. She sighed, worrying about the girl’s future. As a transmigrator, she didn’t know everyone’s fate.

Mei Chi pushed a bowl of meatball soup toward her. “Second Senior Sister, eat more. We won’t reach the Soul Transformation stage before we die anyway, so we don’t need to fast. Even if you want to cultivate like the ancient cultivators, you at least need a full stomach.”

“Like the ancient cultivators?”

Mei Chi nodded, her face and eyes as round as the shorthair cat Ding Xiandi’s mother used to keep. “Yeah. When you were obsessed with Senior Sister Ming Jing, you researched the ancient records and even asked Master how to fix your meridians.”

Ding Xiandi didn’t need to ask to know it hadn’t worked. Mei Chi had always said they couldn’t contact the Master who brought them into the sect. The original owner had been stubborn, seeing Ming Jing as her only hope.

The book hadn’t described Mei Chi, the crane, or the Star Point Sect Master. Ding Xiandi didn’t understand why the original owner was so grateful to Ming Jing for a single gesture. Her junior sister was so cute and shared half her food wasn’t that love too? Why was she so hung up on Ming Jing?

Ding Xiandi hadn’t found any search history on her Tianji Command. “Where did I do that research?”

Mei Chi stared at her for a long time. In her eyes, the change in her Second Senior Sister was indeed quite large. She swallowed a mouthful of soup and said mumbly, “I don’t know that. Since you’ve loved Senior Sister You for so long, why would you forget everything from before?”

Ding Xiandi followed along. “Yeah, why indeed?”

“Well, Master said you being like this is actually normal,” Mei Chi added.

The junior sister didn’t realize she was being played. She began muttering complaints about their missing Master. Ding Xiandi pulled her bowl away. “What did you say? Me being like this is normal?”

Mei Chi snatched her bowl back. She didn’t look like she had thick skin, but her strength was immense and her stomach was a black hole. Every day, the spirit stones Ding Xiandi earned from scanning books in the library went straight into her sister’s food fund. Ding Xiandi was truly experiencing the struggle of having to work just to eat; no wonder the original owner was so miserable. Cultivating like this was pathetic.

“Eat your own food, don’t look at my bowl,” Mei Chi huffed, clutching her soup. She wasn’t nearly as generous with meals as she was with cakes. Ding Xiandi realized: meal food was survival, but cakes were spirit stones those could be shared.

She apologized and asked, “What else did Master say? I thought you couldn’t reach him?”

Outside, it was dark. Disciples from evening classes were leaving the dining hall, while wealthy cultivators headed to private rooms upstairs, treating the main hall like a scenic view. Ding Xiandi and Mei Chi didn’t stand out in the crowd, but that didn’t mean they hadn’t caused a stir lately.

The female cultivator who had sat with Ming Jing in the trial hall was now sitting with a blind diviner. She pointed toward Ding Xiandi. “You say she is a ‘Heavenly Severance’ (Tian Jue)?”

The diviners of the Academy were the most mysterious, partly because they were so cryptic. Even their masters were nocturnal. The diviner in the dark gray silk robe nodded. “May I go now, Miss Gong?”

The girl called Miss Gong had a darker complexion and a gloomy brow. Even in the robes of the Music Department, she looked out of place. Gong Yucui shook her head. “Isn’t your hearing excellent? Can’t you hear what those two idiots from the Star Point Sect are saying?”

Eavesdropping with magic was banned at the Academy. Aside from the cranes, the Tianji Command served as a natural barrier against spying. Only cultivators with extremely high levels could ignore the Academy’s arrays to use high-level spells.

However, there was a class of people born blind whose hearing far surpassed normal humans. They could hear the sounds deep within the mountains from far away, and every human voice within ten miles nearby.

“Miss Gong, a ‘Heavenly Severance’ has the ability to remain unheard.”

The blind diviner’s voice was thin. Though her eyes were shut, a mark like a lightning bolt was etched between her brows—the symbol of her lineage. The barrier to entry for the Academy was high, yet it was still a melting pot: the three sects, the great clans, rogue cultivators, and the ancient “Vassal Tribes” (Juan Zu). The masters only cared about teaching; they ignored the undercurrents among disciples.

Gong Yucui leaned in, staring at the closed eyes. “Dian Song, you’d better not lie to me.”

Born blind, Dian Song’s world was a blur of illusions. Being able to enter the Academy meant she was the most outstanding descendant of the Vassal Tribes. “I wouldn’t dare lie to you, Miss Gong,” she whispered.

Gong Yucui thought back to Ming Jing’s rejection earlier that day, her annoyance lingering. “Ming Jing is so ungrateful. I told her Ding Xiandi might be a ‘Heavenly Severance.’ If Ming Jing became Dao companions with her, killing her to achieve ascension would be within her grasp. And yet, she refused me.”

Compared to Gong Yucui’s colorful earrings and bracelets, Dian Song looked very plain. A “Heavenly Severance” was an exquisite vessel for cultivation. Legend had it that Taoist Yushan, who failed his ascension, had this exact requirement when taking disciples.

“Ming Jing is a person of integrity,” Dian Song said. “She would never choose to exploit a Heavenly Severance.”

The three major clans each had their own vassal tribes. Unlike the Ming and Juan families, who had used marriage strategies for generations, the leading Gong family rarely interacted with the outside world. Their ancestor was Gongyu Lu, who had died ten thousand years ago while taking down the traitor Lou Guantian. Even as the cultivation world declined, the Gong family’s status remained supreme.

Gong Yucui was not the appointed head of this generation. Her talent was poor; if she followed a normal path, she would never win against the others. “If she doesn’t want her,” she snorted, “I’ll take her.”

As a member of the vassal tribe, Dian Song had been raised on ancestral teachings: obey the Gong family. She said nothing more.

In the distance, Ding Xiandi asked Mei Chi in shock, “Why didn’t you say so earlier?”

Mei Chi’s cheeks were puffed out like a hamster. “You didn’t ask.”

“But I didn’t see any record of me entering the library in the logs!”

Mei Chi and Ding Xiandi lived in different apartments, and the original owner wasn’t close to her sister, so there was a huge information gap. “The library logs are cleared every month,” Mei Chi explained. “You probably stopped going once you fell in love with Senior Sister Ming.”

If Ding Xiandi didn’t have an evening class, she would have sprinted to the library right then. Just as she was about to speak, the array that usually displayed dining hall advertisements flickered with large characters:

[Tianji Academy Marriage Hall Update]

Alchemy disciple (Surname Chen) has lit the Marriage Incense to communicate with Heaven and Earth, praying for a union with Music disciple (Surname Zhao)!

Law disciple (Surname You) has lit the Marriage Incense to communicate with Heaven and Earth, praying for harmony with Sword fellow-cultivator (Surname Ding)!

Music disciple (Gong) has lit the Marriage Incense to communicate with Heaven and Earth, praying for a lifelong bond with Sword fellow-cultivator (Surname Ding)!

Ding Xiandi was still thinking about the scrolls the original owner had borrowed—Mei Chi said they contained passages about reversing time. Wasn’t that exactly what she wanted? Did the original owner and I swap places?

Then, the weight of the room shifted. Everyone’s eyes landed on her. There were two “Dings” in the Sword Department, but only the one currently in the spotlight could attract a proposal from the most aloof member of the Law Department.

But what was this “Gong” from the Music Department about?

Mei Chi saw it too. She tapped Ding Xiandi on the arm. “Second Senior Sister, bigamy will trigger heavenly lightning. Don’t be wicked.”

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